Media release

18 February 2019

Job advertisements rise by 2.0 per cent in the December 2018 quarter

Jobs Online figures released today by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment show the number of job advertisements rose by 2.0 per cent in the December 2018 quarter. Dr Rose Ryan, Workforce and Workplace manager, in the Evidence and Insights group, says “This increase is slightly higher than the 1.7 per cent quarterly average seen in September 2018, with Health and Primary Industries contributing most to the rise.”

This quarter’s growth in vacancies is consistent with the trend for business confidence. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion shows a net five percent of businesses increased their headcount and their hiring intentions remained steady in the December 2018 quarter.

Construction and Engineering, Business Services and the Health sector showed the strongest increase across most of the regions. Dr Ryan says the three regions with the highest increase over the quarter were in Gisborne/Hawkes Bay, Northland, and Manawatu – Whanganui/Taranaki. Only Canterbury had a fall in vacancies in the December 2018 quarter.

Online advertising saw the strongest increase in Professional occupations and Machinery Operator and Driver groups across almost all of the regions. Semi-skilled jobs, especially in sales continued to show the weakest increase.

The delay in publishing the data for this quarter was necessitated by an adjustment for shared inventories in job boards since June 2018. The matter only came to light during our processing of the December data. Accordingly, we have reprocessed the last six months’ data and published an extended table of revisions.

Jobs Online measures changes in online job advertisements from four internet job boards – SEEK, Trade Me Jobs, Education Gazette and Kiwi Health Jobs. Job vacancies are an important indicator of labour demand and changes in the economy.

The trend series is used as the primary indicator as it reduces the month-to-month volatility. Only basic highlights are published monthly. Every quarter a detailed report will be published.

Visit our website for more information on MBIE labour market analysis.

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